Downloadable Documents

• THPO - Permit Application - Download
• CRPC Resolution - Download
• THPO - Cultural Resource Protection Permit - Download
• WTN Government to Government Policy - Download

Historical Timeline

• 1778 – Ho-Chunk Chief Caramounee was forced to sign a Treaty of the Revolutionary War by George Rogers Clark at Rock River.

• 1816 – (June) Eighty-six year old Spoon DeCora (Choke-ka), son of Ho-Poe-Kaw; Kara-mani-ga, and Dogs Head signed a friendship Treaty with the Americans.

• 1825 – (August 19) Ho-Chunks signed their first boundary Treaty with the United States government at Butte Des Morts on the Fox River.

• 1827- (August 11) Ho-chunks signed another boundary treaty with the United States government at Butte des Morts on the Fox River.

• 1829 – (August 1) Ho-Chunks signed first cession treaty, relinquishing further claims to lands in Illinois and Wisconsin, south of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. To show a sign of good faith, President John Quincy Adams pardoned both Chick-honsic and We-ka.

• 1837 – (November 1) Ho-Chunk sub-chiefs were tricked into signing away the last of their Wisconsin land in Washington, DC. This was their last Wisconsin cession.

• 1840 – (February 10) General Henry Atkinson was ordered to move all the Ho-Chunks to the Neutral Ground in Iowa. Fort Atkinson was built on the Turkey River.

• 1863 – Blue Earth Reservation was sold by an Act of Congress. In May Ho-Chunks moved down the Mississippi and up the Missouri River by steamboat to Crow Creek. During the month of June General Alfred Sully recruited Ho-Chunks as scouts in the war against the Lakota Sioux. Six hundred Ho-Chunks arrived at the Omaha Reservation the following year. In July Chief Little Priest and 46 other warriors enlisted in a Nebraska Cavalry Regiment with General Alfred Sully and fought against the Teton Lakota at the Battle of Heart River in North Dakota. That same year the Ho-Chunk joined the Union and the Confederacy in the Civil War.

• 1865 – (January 5) Chief Little Priest led the charge against the Oglala and the Minniconjou Lakota near the site of the present town of Winnebago. This battle lasted for two days and came to an end with Little Priest running out the Ogalala and Minniconjou Lakota at the Battle of Winnebago Hills.
  1865 (March 8) A treaty of land cessions in the territory of Dakota with additional land grant in the territory of Nebraska, concluded in Washington, DC and was signed by Abraham Lincoln.

• 1866 - In Little Priest, his brother Grey Wolf, his sons, Walking Priest, John Priest and seventy two other Ho-Chunks enlisted in Company A of the Fort Omaha Scouts at Decatur, Nebraska. Company A served as scouts in the United States Army. During the month of March, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, William P. Dole authorized Winnebago agent Saint Andre Balcombe to move all Winnebago belongings to Nebraska. The Ho-Chunks lost 610 people at Crow Creek due to starvation and the cold. Ninety more died in 1866.

• 1866 (June) Chief Little Priest and his Company A Scouts traveled west and fought Red Cloud’s band of Oglala Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, Northern Arapaho and Itazipo Lakota at the battled of Tongue River located at Deer Creek, Wyoming. (August) Little Priest, his wife Ellen Tebo and their sons, along with James Bird traveled to Wyoming. During their travel Little Priest was separated from his companion and children. A band of Sioux chased him and a battle began at Powder River with James Bird at his side. Chief Little Priest was shot 4 times. First shot was in the right breast, second shot was vertical in the breast causing flesh to flow out of the back shoulder, third shot was below his navel and the final shot was in the shoulder causing him to collapse to the ground, at Deer Creek Fort of Wyoming. A party of Ho-Chunks arrived and rescued Little Priest. He was wrapped in a blanket and brought to Winnebago, Nebraska. He died on September 12, 1866 in Winnebago.
  He was preceded in death by his Father Little Priest I, a son Edward Priest and a daughter Mary Priest. His survivors include his wife Ellen Tebo and their children, John, Louis and Walking Priest, a brother Gray Wolf.